ECE2016 Eposter Presentations Endocrine tumours and neoplasia (68 abstracts)
Body image perception in acromegaly is not associated with objective acromegalic changes, but depends on depressive symptoms
Christina Dimopoulou 1 , Sarah Leistner 1 , Marcus Ising 2 , Harald Schneider 3 , Jochen Schopohl 3 , Sandra Rutz 3 , Robert Kosilek 3 , Richard Frohner 3 , Guenter Stalla 1 & Caroline Sievers 1
1Department of Clinical Neuroendocrinology, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany; 2Department of Molecular Psychology, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany; 3Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik IV, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
Objective: Diagnosis of acromegaly is often delayed up to 10 years after disease onset despite obvious visual changes, bone and soft-tissue deformities. We hypothesized that a reduced sense of body perception in acromegaly, possibly mediated by psychiatric or cognitive alterations, might contribute to the delayed initiation of a diagnostic work-up.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Methods: We investigated perceived body image by standardized questionnaires (FKB-20: Fragebogen zum Körperbild; FBeK: Fragebogen zur Beurteilung des eigenen Körpers) in 81 acromegalic patients and contrasted them to a) a clinical control group of 60 patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA) who lack severe facial and physical alterations and b) normative values of healthy controls. We further evaluated subjective body image perceptions in relation to objective acromegalic changes as judged by medical experts and psychiatric pathology such as depression and cognitive impairment.
Results: Acromegalic patients differed from NFPA patients in only one of the tested body image scales (vital body dynamics, FKB-20), although NFPA patients hardly exhibit any physical/bodily changes. Despite objective acromegalic changes as judged by medical experts, body image scales were similar, indicating a lack of subjective perception of the disease state. Depression was associated with worse scores of body image perception, while no associations were found between body image and cognitive decline, time of hormonal excess or treatment status.
Conclusions: Disturbed body image perception in acromegalic patients is unrelated to their objective appearance and similar to those of NFPA patients without major bodily changes. This fact might contribute to late disease diagnosis.
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Endocrine Abstracts
ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)
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